lessons from logarithms

I remember many winter days sitting in my desk working on math, next to my older sister who was two grades ahead of me. I remember working on adding 10 and subtracting 0 and peeking over at my sister's math paper and seeing those weird symbols that she called division.

"There is no way I'll ever be able to do that kind of math! I'll just stick with my adding and subtracting please!"

But sure enough, in a couple years, I'd whiz through that math book and not think twice about it. But then I'd hear my sister yell out a question to mom, "Mom! How do I find the anitlog of x to the fourth power and the natural log of the cosecant of negative theta?"

"I didn't know logs were part of math...I thought that was science! But either way, there's no way I can make it through trigonometry or whatever it's called."

Years later, I'm working on trigonometry and my mind races back to those days when I was adding 2 + 2 and was convinced that I'd never deal with cotangents. But somehow, when it came time to learn the next lesson and the next type of graph or equation, the amount of knowledge I had was sufficient for taking that next step.

But now I find myself peeking over onto the page of a family's life that shows extreme losses and suffering. Yet I see them praising Jesus more than ever.

"There's no way I'll ever be able to deal with that and respond like they did. I can barely handle a hard day!"

Then I see somebody take huge risks and make huge sacrifices to follow God for the sake of the gospel. They inspire me, but the doubts still hang on.

"I don't think I'd ever be able to follow if God called me to do that. Could I make those kinds of decisions? Would I be bold enough?"

But God said His grace is sufficient. He's working in me daily so that when I get to the logarithms of life, I can step out knowing and trusting that His grace truly is enough.

In "The Hiding Place", Corrie Ten Boom's father uses this illustration:

"Corrie, when you and I go to Amsterdam--when do I give you your ticket?"

"Why, just before we get on the train."

"Exactly. And our wise Father in heaven knows when we're going to need things too. Don't run out ahead of Him, Corrie. When the time comes that some of us will die, you will look into your heart and find the strength you need--just in time."

Let us press on then, even though at this point we may be just learning how to multiply. By seeking and knowing Him everyday, we're taking one step of trust at a time. We're making daily decisions to live for Him, and I think we'll find that when the bigger decisions come--the decisions of whether or not to trust Him by making big sacrifices, of whether or not to praise Him in the midst of trials--we'll find that each day, as we treasured Him, searched His Word, made small sacrifices and choices to live for Him, He was preparing us for these decisions. His grace is totally sufficient.